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located in Murmansk, was designed to process the wastes produced 

 by Russia's nuclear powered icebreaker fleet. 



The concept for upgrading the Murmansk facility was 

 presented at the Gore -Chernomyrdin Commission meeting in June 

 19 94 by the EPA Administrator, Carol Browner. This concept was 

 accepted by both Vice-President Gore and Russian Prime Minister, 

 Viktor Chernomyrdin and was subsequently presented at the Summit 

 meeting of the Heads of State. President Clinton and President 

 Yeltsin issued a joint U.S. -Russian Summit Announcement on 

 September 28, 1994 that cooperation on the resolution of the 

 problem of processing and storing Russian liquid radioactive 

 waste is considered an important component of more effective 

 protection for the environmental quality and natural resources of 

 the Arctic. 



This project moved very quickly. On the U.S. side, the 

 Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of State, the 

 Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and the Agency 

 for International Development have jointly collaborated on this 

 Murmansk Initiative, within the context of U.S. Arctic 

 environmental protection, pollution prevention and environmental 

 security objectives. 



In Norway, there has been active participation led by the 

 Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and including the 



